CSBG Archive

A Year of Cool Comic Book Moments – Day 203

Here is the latest cool comic book moment in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here‘s the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we finish out look at moments from Suicide Squad #36.

To set the scene, former Suicide Squad member Lashina has kidnapped most of the more powerful members of the Suicide Squad to go to Apokolips to get her former position as head of the Female Furies back (she needs their help as cannon fodder, basically). So Bronze Tiger is forced to put together a team to go save them, with the help of the Forever People (as his transport to Apokolips).

Doctor Light has been haunted by the ghost of the first Doctor Light, and his former friend compels him to volunteer for this mission…

Then, when they arrive on Apokolips, Light gets his moment in the sun!!!

Hilarious.

Especially as Ostrander is so committed to the joke that he even gives the cover to Light’s heroics…

Michael P.

I’ve never actually read any Suicide Squad. It’s one of those recommendations that’s on my “to-read” list, but it’s never been a particularly high priority. It’s a long list, after all. This, though, makes me want to bump it up a few notches.

I like that there are actually SEVERAL “moments” in this set of pages, but they all lead up to the ultimate “Truly, this IS hell.” I really dig the characterization of this devil in contrast with your typical comic-book Satan stand-in. Mephisto rages with bluster and wild schemes, but this devil is resigned to mediocrity.

Tom Fitzpatrick

chad

loved how doctor light buys into the ghost telling him what he would get if he goes on the mission only to find it was a set up by a demon and also loved dr. light doing his own version of the green latern oath. and then stuck with the ghost for ever. priceless

stephen cade

So, is this the same Dr. Light we see in Identity Crisis?
If so, how is he still alive after Suicide Squad, anyone?

******Light was thus sent to Hell, where he was physically reunited with Finlay.
Under the watch of a lesser demon and its annoying assistant, both men were released from Hell in turns and returned to life. Both would only soon die again:
Arthur Light suffocates while still inside his grave, while the desiccated Finlay claws his way out of his own grave but was killed by a family of religious vigilantes.
Arthur Light was again returned to life, and barely survives a great fall that his demonic tormentors may have intended to be fatal.
Arthur also finds time to possess the body of the female Doctor Light, Kimiyo Hoshi. With the aide of her teacher, Kimiyo is able to reject Arthur’s presence.— wikipedia.org

AERose

Omar Karindu, with the power of SUPER-hypocrisy!

The transformation of Light into a comedy villain was — IMHO — a misstep. (It’s especially so when you realize he was broomed to make way for perennially mediocre villain Psimon.)

One of the more surprising things about reading the old JLA stories is the realization that Light was NOT a criminal, at least not in the usual sense. He didn’t rob banks or (usually) try to conquer the world. Among the early JLA villains, he was the guy who simply wanted to kill the Leaguers. When he couldn’t kill them all, he started trying to kill them individually.

And this was the source of his decline: especially in a Silver Age DC book, the villain can’t kill or even particularly harm the hero. (Goofily transform him or her, sure, but not harm.) So unlike more conventionally-motivated baddies, Light never got those “fake victory” moments where, say, Mirror Master escapes into a prismatic dimension with those 14th-century telescopes or Despero hypnotizes the population of Earth.

So Light lost, and lost baldly, in every appearance. And from there became a joke.

That said, Meltzer’s making him a rapist essentially made the character unusable as a supervillain, and had the deeper problem of being entirely unconnected to Light’s ostensible modus operandi. Really, it could have been any number of since-neutered or camp 1960s villains committing the rape, from Brain Storm to Amos Fortune. (I suppose we should be grateful not to have gotten Starro-based hentai.) What making him comic relief failed to do, trying to make him “serious” accomplished: the death of Doctor Arthur Light.

Actually the coolest moment from this issue is that the lines that Dr. Light says:
“Oh No! That’s me… and I don’t look at all well! I’m dead!”

Is taken almost word-for-word from the classic Firesign Theater comedy bit,
The Further Adventures of Nick Danger:
ROCKY ROCOCO; “Stop it! Stop it! Stop singing, you fools! Can’t you see someone has been crushed here under this car?! Oh, oh my god, it’s me! I don’t look at all well! I’m dead!

You can’t get much cooler then using a bit from a classic comedy group like Firesign Theater!

badspock

How exactly does making him a rapist render Dr. Light unuseable as a super villian? Personally, I think it makes him more evil andfrightening than, say, Despero. After all, you don’t even have to be evil to want to rule the world, but there’s no mistaking the true evil inherent in Light’s actions as written by Meltzer.

Light brought every super heroes worst fears to the fore with a brutal attack on a loved one. And, more to the point, someone beloved by pretty much the entire League.

Or, to put it in perspective, did it make the Joker less useable when he shot Babs, stripped her bleeding body bare and took photos? I’d always thought that he might have raped her as well, and even if he hadn’t, the Joker GN by Azzarello and Bermejo made it very clear that he’d forced himself on Johnny’s ex wife, just to drive home a point. In Bab’s case, the not knowing almost makes it worse.

LouReedRichards

For me at least, it’s easier to feel empathy for a villain that want’s to conquer the world or turn everyone into zombies or any of a number of generic “bad guy plots”. The scope and spectacle are so far removed from everyday life that it just seems easier to handle and actually kind of root for the villain – at least a little bit.
And I think deep down I need to sympathize with the villain at least a little to get the full enjoyment from the story

When the villain commits acts that are much more reality based, such as murder and rape (esp. rape) it just makes them harder to sympathize with. I don’t really live in fear of my wife having her free will sapped out from the Anti-Life Equation, but rape and murder are legitimate fears.

Plus it just seems cheap and senseless to have grandiose villains act in such craven ways.

For me it doesn’t make them more evil and frightening, it just makes them pathetic.